coming of age

I spent the beginning of the week road tripping to colleges with my daughters, 15 and 17, and ended the week at the Women in the World Summit in NYC. When I listened to economist Noreena Hertz’s talk about “Generation K” and her recent survey research with thousand teen girls ages 13-20, I thought: “Wow. You know my girls.” She could have just as easily been in the back seat of our car. Chatting. Texting. Napping. Taking selfies.

Of course, Generation K refers to Katniss Everdeen, the heroine in The Hunger Games series. Here is a cohort of girls coming of age in full immersion with technology; who are experiencing the effects of a major economic recession during their childhood; in a world where terrorism has no boundaries. That pretty much sums up the book series.

In Hertz’s words: “For Generation K, the world is a dystopian nightmare.” She portrays our teen girls as super anxious. I would also add to this a companion legion of overly anxious, hovering and controlling parents. And who can blame them?

One observation is how this generation communicates. According to Hertz, they relate to the world through images and symbols and smartphones. For a typical girl today, identity is largely influenced by the technology she consumes. Hertz notes that for a girl it’s more like “I connect, therefore I am.”

(See video clip of the #WITW interview with Noreen Hertz.)

Any parent of a teenager knows this to be true. On this trip we easily exceeded our family mobile data limit no matter how much I said, “Look outside!” They may take selfies but they are not selfish, said Hertz. Yet, Hertz’s observation of the importance of visuals for these young women made me wonder just how the deluge of photos, videos, sound bites and emoticons affects their brains? The human brain doesn’t know the difference between a live event and an image on a screen. No wonder this generation is angst ridden given the relentless news cycles of dramas and disasters.

What do my girls worry about as they come of age? I thought about this and their concerns map what Hertz found in her research.

Future: Getting a job, making a difference and doing the right thing. My girls, like so many young people, want to make an impact, but worry that the chances may not be in their favor.

Finances: It hadn’t occurred to me the extent of my daughter’s concerns. Of all the things to chat about with a prospective college coach – favorite position, team records, love of the game, GPA or majors – the one question Sophie asked was about tuition: “Is there scholarship money left?” It made my heart sink. Later, she said she doesn’t want to be strapped with college debt; she is already anticipating the burden she will bear.

Existence: They worry about the world: planet and people. Josie was stunned driving through New Jersey. “What is this place? It’s like out of some movie.” Like the precincts in the Hunger Games maybe? Jersey came first, dear. (To be fair driving on Interstate 95 is not a balanced view of the state, but still.)

Terrorism: It’s both sad and true. Over the course of their young adolescence – I’m talking between the ages of 12 and 15 – shocking events took place: the mass shooting of school children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, which is just next to the small town where I grew up; the mass shooting in the Aurora movie theater full of Batman fans; and of course, the Boston Marathon bombings. Indeed, two years ago our city was in a lock down over spring break.

Fast forward. Just two weeks ago their high school was in a lock down in response to a young man carrying a gun. The track team girls barricaded themselves in with lacrosse sticks through door handles. For two hours the girls’ teams were in a dark locker room because they are trained to turn off the lights during a lock down. Josie didn’t appreciate the “not knowing” since there was no cell phone reception on the lower level of the school; nor did she tolerate the “nasty BO” of the girl she was squashed against.

When she retold the experience later in the evening she was very articulate about all the thoughts that went through her mind: about death, not saying “I love you” enough, and never going to bed feeling angry. She was shook up. She also regretted asking her dad earlier in the week: “What would it feel like to be shot?” This question was in response to the all too frequent news videos showing cops killing black men. And in the human way we all want to make sense out of senseless things, Josie’s magical thinking was that maybe if she didn’t ask the question there wouldn’t have been an actual person carrying a gun at her school.

Sophie, her older sister, who luckily was not at school, commented on how well trained they are with lock down drills. She’s a student leader. “Now they tell us to fight back,” she reported. “When students and teachers fight an intruder it lowers the number of casualties.”

Like, seriously? We live in the suburbs. No matter. No place is safe. This is what today’s kids are growing up with. More news access, more visuals and a heightened awareness of the randomness of the world. Random acts of violence and random acts of kindness.

What does this generation value? According to the Hertz survey, our anxious teen girls also value being unique, the most frequent word used by the girls. They also value diversity and co-existing in a fair and just world.

Fortunately for mom, Sophie and Josie are still typical teen girls. The road trip included shopping for flip-flops and trying on prom dresses. They didn’t fight for five days. Sometimes it takes getting out of your own environment to recalibrate.

I wish I had brought them to the Women In The World summit. Amazing women and inspiring girls from all over the world were present. At this very moment these female role models are overcoming adversity and making tangible changes. Hearing their stories reminds me just how crucial it is to take a stand, be creative and lead with generosity and compassion. Anything is possible.

Ms. Hertz ended on a somewhat hopeful note. Digging into her surveys stats and individual interviews with 25 teens revealed that these girls will not tolerate inequality – in opportunity or pay. They may be fearful, but they are also feisty. They are thinking ahead about career and family (35% say they don’t want or are not sure if they want children). They are pragmatic. It will be interesting to see how this generation’s emerging values will bear out over time and just how that might affect our future: political, economic and demographic.

The summit ended with a last-minute guest appearance of Angelina Jolie, special ambassador to the United Nations. She just testified at a UN hearing about Syria, the greatest humanitarian disaster of our day displacing four million people, primarily women and children. Of course, I texted my girls:

Me: Angelina Jolie Pitt speaking now… (photo)

S: Take a picture with her

J: ^^^

A few minutes later…

Me: She’s off stage … program is over.

S: GO FIND HER

J: MOM

THIS IS ONCE IN A LIFE TIME

They were screaming at me to seek out Jolie. Well, there is always next year. In the meantime there are lots of ways to make the world a better place. Go girls.

That’s the question that a new Dove film asks mothers and daughters. In documentary style, moms and their daughters (7-10 years old) are asked – separately – to write two lists: what they like about their bodies and what they don’t like.

The first time I watched the film, all of three minutes, I found myself holding my breath. Oh god, what are my daughters, now ages 14 and 16, adopting about the way I view my body or myself?

In the film, when the mother and daughter pairs’ lists were compared, the things they liked and disliked about their body were remarkably similar. If a mom complained about her legs, so did the daughter. If a mom liked her smile, so did the girl.

I watched the film a few more times, putting myself in the role as mom, and as the daughter…my 8- or 12- or 16-year-old self.

To be sure, some women will watch this film and say, “Oh here’s another mother-bashing moment.” Surprisingly, I don’t feel that way. And I’m in a profession that tends to examine childhood hurts and “empathic failures” of parenting to a fault. Instead, I found the film to be a teachable moment. The moms and girls were relatable and endearing; it made me take pause.

And that is the whole point of the film—coming to a moment of self-awareness about the ways we may be influencing our children, intentionally or otherwise.

It also invites a retrospective lens on what beliefs we may have carried forward that may not have been our own to start with.

When I reflect back on my childhood I remember feeling skinny, awkward and ugly. I was the girl who stuffed a training bra with tissues, with little added result. Yet, this self-consciousness didn’t come as some sort of message from my mother. In fact, she missed, and often dismissed, any coming-of-age angst I may have expressed. But no matter. Culture was an influential teacher, even in the hang loose, hippie heyday of the 1970s where a bra was a non-essential.

As my luck had it, my mother was an extraordinary beauty. I admired and felt proud of her natural good looks as some badge of honor I could benefit from. “Your mom is so pretty!” my girlfriends would say. She was much more than that.

My mom handed down an appreciation of the European aesthetic she grew up in, a value for arts and culture, and the gift of grace. She had an aptitude for pulling herself and her two girls together with virtually no financial resources. In hindsight it’s no surprise that she became an Avon Lady selling cosmetics door-to-door, sashaying into the homes of dour housewives, who were charmed by her German accent and her Sophia Loren looks. She had a talent for helping them feel beautiful not only with make-up and perfume samples, but with the wholehearted attention she poured over them.

I doubt any of her customers, largely middle and lower class women living on the coast of Connecticut, had any idea whatsoever that our family was on food stamps, that her husband left the family bankrupt, and that we relied on the generosity of friends to help get us by.

The beauty legacy I inherited from a beautiful woman was not about the shape of my nose, the thickness of my thighs, or the texture of my hair—timeless issues that so many girls obsess over. As the Dove’s Legacy film portrayed, moms are central role models for their children. They pass on beliefs and feelings about beauty, self-worth and so much more.

The legacy that I inherited was this unspoken rule that under no circumstances could anyone know that we were poor. The trick was we had to have a really good cover. The only way that my sister and I could travel through life was to look very put together, neat and clean, and yet trendy. My mother had style. She sewed our outfits. She frequented the local second hand shop, trading our old clothes for the newer, “gently worn” items of the more fortunate.

It was a childhood lesson in “fake it until you make it.”

This had its consequences as my sister and I became teenagers. I remember my first date, the late bloomer that I was, in my sophomore year in high school. A friend’s older brother, the lanky star of the basketball team, invited me to the homecoming dance. I was excited and terrified at the same time.

My girlfriends’ mothers were buying the current fashion of the early 80s: the dreamy Gunny Sack dresses with lace and high collars. Surely we could not afford a Gunny Sack dress. I cried about it. My mother, to her credit, agreed to buy me a short sleeve blouse of the coveted brand. We then went to the fabric store and bought three yards of a sage green print – to match the ribbon trim in the blouse. We sewed a long flowing skirt. And despite my mom’s resourcefulness, I felt ashamed and angry. I feel badly about it now, but that’s a teenager for you. (Today it’s overpriced Uggs and Lululemon yoga pants that are a topic of contention between my girls and me.)

When I met my date’s mother, holding a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she lavished over me. She droned, “Why, honey, aren’t you simply lovely. You look like a doll.”

I died inside. Indeed, I felt like a Madame Alexander collectable doll. The worst part, of course, was the only judge was me.

Later in college when I started dating a handsome soccer player, I laughed out loud when he later told me that he thought I was a rich girl from the exclusive township of Greenwich, Connecticut. I seemed untouchable, he noted, and this inspired his pursuit.

It’s funny when I think back that this was the beauty legacy I inherited: to be well put together, look wealthy (not poor), and appear out of reach so that no one could know the real story of my life.

This morning I watched my younger daughter getting up an extra half hour early for school so that she could straighten her long hair with an iron. I remember I did the same, but with hot curlers.

No matter what our mothers may want for us, or say to us about how wonderful we are on the inside, or complain about their own body image, there’s no doubt that girls are raised in part by a much larger force: our culture. My older daughter laments about her thick (and luscious) hair that other girls would die for. My younger daughter thinks that she has a round, fat nose which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Yet, I understand girls are a by-product of the communities they live and play in – off line and online. Unquestionably, mothers can’t help but hand down their beliefs or “legacies,” including those that go beyond looks or body image.

It’s interesting to me that my girls are keenly aware that our family is not rich. Self-comparison is the name of the game in adolescence, especially observing the haves and have-nots. They complain that I’m still driving a 14-year old, rusty mini-van because soon they want to drive a much cooler car. Our house could use a paint job. And we’ve never taken a family vacation to Disney World.

Yet, they have no real idea of what it means to be poor, either. That’s because I have done my best to protect them from the experiences I had as a child, which were largely shrouded in secrecy and shame. I can’t say that this is a good thing. My girls have been well protected from the plight of a broken home, relying on food subsidies, or having to put up a good front. They can only imagine it and, frankly, no kid wants to be lectured about it.

I have no doubt that they will experience losses and hardships. Struggle is necessary, as is failure. That’s the only way to understand what it means to fully live in the world. It requires having to draw on inner resources and resilience you don’t know you have until you are tested by life. At the same time, I am mindful that the lessons I want to teach my daughters is not about the necessity of fitting in or standing out – paradoxical messages they get from society – but of the imperative for kindness and compassion. But mostly, I want them to know they have beautiful spirits and a life of purpose.
It’s a subtle teaching and I have no idea if it will work, but I find myself shifting how I speak to them, which de-emphasizes their looks, social dramas, or complaints.

How’s your spirit today?

Be open to the unexpected surprises.

Smile and see who smiles back.

What made you laugh?

Name one delightful thing you experienced today.

Savor the moment.

Do something nice for someone.

Say thank you.

They pretend to ignore me or roll their eyes. But I don’t mind. The point is our lives are full of riches. And one way or another, they will absorb it. That’s the legacy I hope to pass down.

Visit www.Dove.com/Legacy or Facebook.com/Dove for more information on the 5th Annual Dove Self-Esteem Weekend, to access free self-esteem tools and resources specifically created for moms, mentors and teachers to motivate and inspire young girls.

*Disclosure. I am an expert global advisor to the Dove Self Esteem Project, which has a social mission to improve body confidence in girls. I provide expertise on evidence-based content and curriculum development to support educational initiatives on self-esteem and positive body image in girls. My participation on the Dove Self-Esteem Project advisory board is not an endorsement the DOVE products. The opinions stated on my blog/website are my own.

She said she needed a pair to tan flats for the older girl’s sweet 16 party. That’s what I heard anyway. So when Sophie bopped into the car with her mall pals I said, Let’s see the shoes!

Silence.

She pulled them out. A pair of high heels. Yes, tan. I paused. Impulsively, I gave her the look.

I thought you said flats, honey?

No. I said I needed tan shoes to go with my coral dress.

Those are really high, I mutter.

Her friend rather politely says, My mother prefers that I didn’t wear high heels, either.
(Thanks, friend. Might you have piped up at the store?)

I was instantly catapulted back to my little attic bedroom with the floral wallpaper and slanted ceilings. There, in the crawl space at the far end of my teenage hideway, I hid a pair of shocking red high heels.

My mother would have killed me. Or rather, she would have gone into full hysteria, waling about how hard she works raising us girls all by herself, and what do we have to show her for it. And so on. Then she’d pray.

I was 17 at the time. I worked at a shoe store in town. I got an employee discount. Had my mother discovered the red shoes I would have pulled out the “it’s my money” card or “you can’t tell me what to do anymore” or point out all the expensive shoes she hid in her closet for her job in the city. (Of course, I knew where to look).

Ah, my not-so little girl and her new pumps.

It was a moment of mourning.

Sitting there turning on the engine, I thought, here is my choice point. She knows how I feel. I could demand that she return them. That would cause a fuss. An angry exchange, more likely. Humiliation in front of friends; potentially more so in front of a hip sales clerk at Charlotte Russe. It would ruin her night at the party. The anticipation would have been punctured. The girls were giddy about going to an older teammate’s coming of age celebration. For weeks, they had been texting pictures of dresses, even though they only own one or two since the 8th grade dance—a mere 6 months ago.

Or I could let it go.

So I did. I took a breath. I thought about my red high heels, and all the other secrets I had in order to preserve whatever relationship I had with my mother. In the 30 seconds it took me to back out of the parking space and scan their bright faces, I thought: These little ladies will wear their high heels for about 5 minutes. Then they’ll dance barefoot.